English orthography is the
orthography used in
writing the
English language, including English
spelling,
hyphenation,
capitalization,
word breaks,
emphasis, and
punctuation. Like the orthographic systems of most
world languages, it has a broad degree of
standardization. However, unlike most languages, English provides more than one way to spell nearly every
phoneme, and most letters and letter-combinations can stand for different pronunciations depending on context and meaning. This is largely due to the complex
history of the English language together with the absence of systematic
spelling reforms. In general, modern English spelling, much of which was devised originally for the phonetic spelling of
Middle English, does not reflect the
sound changes that have occurred since the late fifteenth century (such as the
Great Vowel Shift). There are some
variations in English orthography by global regions, some of which resulted from spelling reform efforts that succeeded only partially and only in certain regions. Some orthographical mistakes are common even among native speakers.